


Stay

by simplyprologue



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 03, post-New Caprica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 09:13:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1852582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A shorter look at their reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Another tumblr prompt, from **wolfheartedqueen**. Archiving, again, so if you follow me on tumblr you've seen this.

Unsteady legs carry him to her. Colonial One has docked for repairs; long months on the ground in wet, loamy, soil and then the trials of the exodus had left the ship battle worn, but Bill, exhausted as he is, has not considered the obvious corollary to that fact—that Laura, too, would be aboard. Fortune has brought their reunion to a relatively secluded pass way on the Galactica, and he does not hesitate to fold her into his arms.

She leans into him first, before tiredly bringing her arms around him, up under his shoulders. Shell-shocked and malnourished, she’s barely a shadow of herself. But time, he knows, and a warm shower, clean clothes, laundered sheets. And sleep. She has time now, to sleep.

Reports have become to come in, on a list of prisoners to be executed and on Colonial insurgents who have been detained and tortured for information, on Resistance leaders, and Laura’s name crosses all of them. Bill can’t take care of her now, not in the middle of a shift like this in a war like this. Officers are crawling out of the crowds and trying to find uniforms to put on, but his military is scattered out among the fleet.

He’s needed in CIC.

So he squeezes her arms, and whispers to her to go to his quarters, use anything she needs. Trembling, she nods her head, dropping an arm from around him to push her glasses up her nose. Hand shaking, the only makes them more crooked on her face.

It’s nothing for Bill to reach up and straighten them, before sliding his hand from the leg of her glasses to cup her cheek, into her hair. Something like relief crosses her face, and she leans in to kiss him in their darkened little corner.

Shaking, she pulls back, eyes darting. “You don’t have to stay.” The words stumble from her lips like platitudes, face shuddering. “I can take care of myself. I know they need you in CIC, and I’m no one special.”

There are bruises at her wrists; he does not hold her to keep her from leaving. Bill doesn’t tell her that comm chatter is already referring to her as  _President Roslin_ , the will of the people sweeping her like a current back into office and away from him.

Laura will come back to him when she’s ready.

Stopping herself, she turns back. He hasn’t moved.

“I’ll… do you mind if I use your rack?” she says like an apology, hugging herself.

Away, but not too far.

Familiar ground, as soft-tread as it is these days. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
